The Duke basketball program will enter the 2024-25 season as one of the nation's top-ranked teams, as Jon Scheyer's squad has a legitimate chance to bring a National Title back to Durham for the first time in ten years. According to BetMGM, the Blue Devils (+1000) currently have the second-best odds to win the Championship, trailing only the two-time defending champions UConn Huskies (+900).

While we could certainly quibble over which school deserves to be the preseason championship favorite, there's very little debate as to which school will be bringing in the best freshman class for the 2024-25 season. That distinction belongs to the Duke Blue Devils, who have six top 40 commits, including Cooper Flagg, who is widely regarded to be one of the best high school prospects of the last two decades.

As is the case with most star freshmen, the wide-spread expectation is that after Flagg spends a season with the Blue Devils, he'll be off to the NBA, where he'll most likely be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. But before too many NBA teams decide to tank away the season playing “Capture the Flagg,” they better take a listen to what Cooper Flagg has been saying about his eventual NBA debut.

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“For me, it's just about focusing on my team and this year and what we have to do,” Flagg responded when asked about the 2025 NBA Draft, per ESPN's Jonathan Givony. “That's not something that I'm worried about or even thinking about, at this time.”

Now on one hand, you could simply assume that Flagg is providing the most respectful and diplomatic answer possible to this question. There's no upside for Flagg acknowledging that he's already looking ahead to making the jump to the NBA. On the other hand, in the NIL era, there's going to come a time where a player of Cooper Flagg's caliber decides against making that early jump because he's already making a comfortable living playing in college.

Whether Cooper Flagg will be that guy remains to be seen. He's currently the highest-valued college basketball player in the country, per On3, but that pales in comparison to the eventual payday he could earn in the NBA.